Watering down an ambitious project

Giant pumps at the federal C.W. “Bill” Jones Pumping Plant near Tracy, Calif.

Armando Godina empties a bucket into a sorting tray at a fish collection facility near Tracy, Calif.

Rene Reyes, a biologist at the federal fish collection facility near Tracy, Calif, holds a silverside, one of the species found in a fish count.

Golden shiners swim in a tank at the federal fish collection facility near Tracy, Calif.

Conservation biologist Jonathan Rosenfield is pictured near the Middle River in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Instead of flowing north toward San Francisco Bay, as nature intended, the Middle is heading south.

Just after dusk, a motorboat skims down Whiskey Slough in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, just outside Stockton.

Morning reveals birds roosting on barren trees on the Middle River in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

A farmer works a field in his tractor in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta just outside Stockton.